Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Setting up phones is a nightmare

joelchrono.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 257 posts

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#211

Post by deng »

wolvoleo wrote: post #210
deng wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't have to use the cloud transfer with WhatsApp. You can simply transfer the backup files manually before you do the first logon. They're in the media folder. This does not work anymore. The chats are encrypted and the key to decrypt them is not in the backup files.

I did it only a few weeks ago. They are indeed encrypted but it seems to retrieve the key from WhatsApp itself. They wouldn't be much good as a backup if there was no way to read them of course.

I tried the exact same thing a few weeks ago with a de-googled phone and it did not work. I had to transfer the /data/data/com.whatsapp folder as well via root access, then it restored the chats (the display of the old phone was dead and hence I couldn't initiate any kind of account transfer to a new phone).

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#212

Post by WhyNotHugo »

We’ve had decades during which we could have educated more and more people on how use tech. Instead, the industry embraced dumbing everything down and claiming that everything needs to target technically illiterate people, while insisting that educating everyone was a bad idea.

This is what we end up with: people who don’t understand enough to configure their own phones, and phones full of spyware under the control of consumer-hostile actors.

The most worrying this is that this doesn’t just apply to the elder: it also applies to the newer generation.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#213

Post by dangus »

alexdbird wrote: post #200
dangus wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Apple sometimes re-asks you with minor point releases a selection of those questions even though you’ve already answered.

This often tells you a key has been invalidated due to updated security logic.

Interesting reasoning that I never thought of, though it doesn’t change the fact that this kind of stuff deters my non-technical family members from updating

Every update for them is like an exercise in anxiety and fear.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#214

Post by iguhhyfchh »

LoganDark wrote: post #108
II2II wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for the back to restore while you go about your business. Most of the author's criticisms were centered on avoiding account creation and third-party apps. I'm not sure I would give Apple the benefit of the doubt here since the motivations are different: Apple is far more interested…

At least Apple's ecosystem is genuinely better in certain ways. Everyone else wants a piece of the pie that they didn't deserve.

Getting downvoted for speaking the truth. HN loves to twist its nose every time someone praises a closed-source solution but falls head over heels for anyone claiming to work for a FAANG. Hypocrisy thy name is HN.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#215

Post by LoganDark »

iguhhyfchh wrote: post #214
LoganDark wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Apple's ecosystem is genuinely better in certain ways. Everyone else wants a piece of the pie that they didn't deserve.

Getting downvoted for speaking the truth. HN loves to twist its nose every time someone praises a closed-source solution but falls head over heels for anyone claiming to work for a FAANG. Hypocrisy thy name is HN.

I got downvoted one single time. Ow owie ouch my fake internet points.

It was probably for saying everyone else doesn't deserve the piece of the pie. That's incredibly subjective on my part.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#216

Post by iguhhyfchh »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #212

We’ve had decades during which we could have educated more and more people on how use tech. Instead, the industry embraced dumbing everything down and claiming that everything needs to target technically illiterate people, while insisting that educating everyone was a bad idea. This is what we end up with: people who don’t understand enough to configure their own phones, and phones full of spyware under the control o…

[dead]

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#217

Post by 71bw »

hagbard_c wrote: post #18
sonofhans wrote: post #8

“Phones” in the title is doing lots of heavy lifting. “Android phones” is the key missing piece. I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life on it, but it’s no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don’t work on a hobby car. The author’s experience is why I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for…

What is it in your life which makes it 'impossible' to use free software, Google-free AOSP-derived Android distributions being part of this? I run close to exclusively free software and have done so for decades and have yet to feel the need to change this. Of course there are exceptions, e.g. I need to run proprietary applications for banking and electronic ID but those are the exceptions to the rule. My server runs…

>What is it in your life which makes it 'impossible' to use free software, Google-free AOSP-derived Android distributions being part of this?

Play Integrity and Google's monopoly on providing "hardware attestation".

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#218

Post by 71bw »

eloisant wrote: post #186
dhosek wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very much the inverse of you. I don’t use Android because I don’t want to have to worry about all the fiddly stuff that is involved with Android. I like that it’s not a big deal to migrate to a new phone, that I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll be able to get security updates in a year, or have to spend time disabling telemetry. If I did want to do a lot of fiddling with the phone then sure, Android would b…

The idea that Android needs tinkering of fiddling needs to die. 80% of users in the world use Android, and most of them don't do any tinkering or fiddling.

...and then you look into what devices they are using and what they are ignoring that could have been resolved by tinkering.

My father-in-law has just had an issue where Xiaomi's camera app took up 95GB of space on his phone. Not the photos - just the camera app. Uninstalling updates for the app resolved the issue, all the space was magically back.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#219

Post by 71bw »

celsoazevedo wrote: post #102
skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I thought sideloading wasn't a real problem and Google is just locking it down because they're evil :-)

Funny, as someone that uses Android, sideloads apps, and is the "tech guy" for some older people, I went "yep, Google's own Play Store is full of shitty apps". I recommend getting an Android phone (there are cheap Google Pixels out there) and try to sideload an app. Also browse the web a bit without an adblocker. I'd be surprised if by the end of the experiment you thought that sideloading is the reason their grandma…

Off-topic, but thanks for hosting all the gcam ports for all these years.
Post reply on HN